Kitty Groeller Dissertation Defense

Abstract: It is well established in sociology of education literature that a students’ ability to engage in college going is limited by key structural factors, such as broad sociohistorical inequalities, legislative policies, and resource availability. The near-peer in-school model of college advising was created to combat this complex social issue, placing recent college graduates in schools that have the highest need, usually with student populations that are a majority low-income, first-generation, or students of color. College advisers are responsible for fostering college-going cultures, reframing higher education as accessible and valuable to students. However, advisers face a difficult task: quickly integrating themselves into school buildings and communities that they may have no prior connection to, where institutional dynamics are already well-established. Using a convergent-parallel mixed methods design, including ten one-on-one semi-structured interviews and an online survey of 34 college advisers in the United States, this study examines how near-peer in-school advisers navigate their professional role within varying levels of institutional inclusion and exclusion. Findings indicate that an adviser’s professional adjustment is directly influenced by their degree of integration within their schools, which subsequently affects their capacity to cultivate strong college-going cultures. These findings highlight that the effectiveness of near-peer college advising is not solely dependent on individual adviser initiative and motivations but is structurally determined by the degree to which advisers are institutionally positioned as legitimate actors within their schools. Institutional integration strengthens adviser role adjustment and thus enhances student postsecondary outcomes, while exclusionary structures reinforce systemic barriers to college access.

 

List of committee: Dr. Clifford Broman (chair), Dr. Zhenmei Zhang (cannot attend), Dr. Isabel Ayala, and Dr. Joanne Marciano (from Teacher Education).